immmmmmm ™I2!L_ ■!r'"flft-.>3gi>uWJ» BERKELEY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OP CALIFORNIA ^UCAII©5 .LXBB. [\:. ^^ (5^ 4 -,/. /2,./f^O. ^ /o The Washingtons' English Home By rose G. KINGSLEY AND OTHER STORIES OF BIOGRAPHY THE WASHINGTONS' ENGLISH HOME, Rose G. Kingsley. CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS, Rose G. Kingsley. QUEEN ELIZABETH'S SCHOOLMASTER, Edwin D. Mead. THE QUEEN'S LITTLE SKYE, Mrs. Annie Sawyer Downes. THE RUSKIN MAY-DAY AT WHITE- LANDS COLLEGE, Sarah K. Bolton. LAST TALE OP CHARLES PERRAULT, Katherine M. Haven. Illustrations from Original Drawings by Garrett, Robert Lewis and H. Pruett Share BOSTON D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS JOHN S. PRELL Gdl & Mechanical Engineen SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. Copyright by D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY 1884 GIFT 9^i THE WASHINGTONS' ^ ENGLISH HOME. AWAY in the centre of Northamptonshire, among great solemn woods and heavy clay pastures, lies a stately park round a noble house. On the hill above sits an ancient brown sandstone church, brooding like an old hen over her chick- ens — the yellow-brown sandstone cottages of the village. And a mile beyond the church, in a smal- ler village, a low sandstone house stands by the roadside, with thatched roof, and high gable-ends, and stone mullioned windows, and an inscription carved over the door. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Constructa. 1606. The Park is Althorp Park, Lord Spencer's splen- 7 8i0 8 THE WASHINGTONS ENGLISH HOME. did home. The church is Brington Church ; and it contains monuments which should stir every American heart. For in the sandstone house at Little Brington lived the ancestor of George Wash- ington ; and he lies buried in Brington Church with his wife and several of his children and kinsfolk. Yes ! In that low sandstone house — now a cottage — Mr. Lawrence Washington, son and heir of Robert Washington of Sulgrave in Northamp- tonshire, lived and died. And it was his second son, John, who emigrated in 1657 to Virginia, there to found the family of the illustrious first Presi- dent of the United States. The Washingtons who were originally a Lanca- shire family, had been settled in Northampton- shire for several generations ; first in the town of Northampton ; then at Sulgrave ; and when their fortunes declined — in consequence, some say, of the ill luck which always came to those who held church property, and the manor of Sulgrave had belonged to St. Andrew's Monastery at North- ampton — and they were obliged to leave Sul- grave, Lawrence Washington settled at Little THE WASHINGTONS ENGLISH HOxME. Brington, near his friend and kinsman Sir Robert Spencer. Some suppose that Lawrence Wash- ington built the house at Little Brington, and GREAT BRINGTON CHURCH.-— BURIAL PLACE OF THE WASH- INGTONS. placed the inscription over the door in token of his many sorrows and trials — the loss of fortune and home, for he was forced to sell Sulgrave in 1610, and the deaths of his wife and several children. Be that as it may, he lived at Little Brington for some years before his death in 161 6. He was honorably buried in the church at Great Brington. And his sons William, John, and Law- rence, were constant guests at Althorp Park, hard by. In the curious steward's books which were found some few years ago in an iron-bound chest at Althorp, and give every item of expenditure in the household from 1623 to 1645, ^^^ names of the Washingtons occur continually, among the quaint- est entries which give one a very clear idea of the way a great house was managed in those days. Here are a few examples from the yellow old housekeeping pages : 1623. June 21. Lump sugar into the nursery, 3 li. 00-02-09 Sir John Washington and Sir William Washington, staying in the house, lobsters given to Mr. Curtis. 4. oohd6-oo Dec. 6. To Legg for the carriage of a doe to my Lord Archbishop. 00-05HX) THE WASHINGTONS' ENGLISH HOME. ii Collar of Brawne sent to Mr. Wash- ington. 1624. July 3. Sent to my Ladie Washington, Puetts 6. (Peewits). Quailes 3. Hearne i. Sturgeon, i rand. Oct. 30. For 52 li. of currants for a great cake. 00-04-00 For butter for a cake, 6 li. 00-02-03 This was the christening cake for "Mistress Katherine Spencer," who was baptized Nov. 14. Sir John Washington and Mr. Curtis being among the guests. These are only a few out of many mentions of the brothers whose horses are noted constantly as being provided with "oates " and so forth. The friendship between the two families of Washing- tons and Spencers was maintained until the out- break of the Civil War. Young Mordaunt, Sir John Washington's eldest son, frequently came with his father to the house that seems to have been ever open to them, and where Mistress Lucy Washington, Sir John's younger sister was house- keeper, a post which in those days was often filled by gentlewomen of good family. It was only in 1641 that these friendly visits ceased — brought to 12 THE WASHINGTONS ENGLISH HOME. an end some suppose by political differences, which at that time were only too apt to sever all ties of friendship and even of family. Sir John is lost sight of during the Civil War, though there is no doubt that he espoused the King's side against Oliver Cromwell ; and, according to Washington Irving and other authorities, he and his brother Lawrence were mixed up in the ^^alist conspi- racy of 1656, and found it more safe and conven- ient to seek a home in the New World the next year, with very many others of their defeated party. For some years before his emigration. Sir John Washington, a widower, with three sons Mordaunt, John, and Philip, had lived at his manor of South Cave, near Hull in Yorkshire. And this explains why we are usually told that the great Washing- ton's ancestors came from the north of England. So they did — just at last. But their true home for more than a hundred years had been the noble county of Northampton. Lawrence Washington was born and died in the county, his children were born there too, and Sir John the emigrant THE WASHINGTONS ENGLISH HOME. 13 married a Northamptonshire lady, Dame Mary Curtis, of Islip, and her tomb is in Islip Church to this day. So that the midlands may justly claim the honor of having sent forth a son of their soil, to help in the making of the great American people. A few years ago circumstances took me to Bring- ton Rectory ; and day after day I wandered across to the grand old church and sat for several hours at a time, sketching the beautiful tombs of the many noble Spencers who since 1599 have been buried there. (Before that date they were buried at Worm- leighton, their great house in Warwickshire.) There lies Sir Robert, whose friendship in- duced Lawrence Washington to settle at Bring- ton, and there, too, lies William his son, Baron Spencer of Wormleighton, John Washington's friend. There too is the heart of his son and suc- cessor the gallant Henry Spencer, who was made Earl of Sunderland by King Charles on the blood-stained battlefield of Edgehill, within sight 14 - THE WASHINGTONS' ENGLISH HOME. of his house of Wormleighton, and who fell at Newbury by Falkland's side. And there is his uncle, Edward Spencer, the Puritan — Cromwell's friend ; whose influence with the Protector saved Brington Church and. those splendid tombs from destruction at the hands of the Roundhead sol- diers. How often have I blessed Edward Spen- cer's memory when I looked at those exquisite monuments all fresh and whole, with their grand recumbent figures, and their carved and painted and gilded canopies — and thought of the broken fingers, the mutilated noses, the disfigured armour and inscriptions in too many of our English churches. But unique and magnificent though the monu- ments be in the Spencer Chapel, what riveted my attention was a great slab of stone in the pave- ment of the aisle. It is cracked right across the middle : but is otherwise uninjured. It bears a coat of arms, on one half of which are two stripes with three stars above them; on the other half three chalices ; and beneath runs an inscription setting forth that M. JVTLER'OF^TEES'iN-THCvCDUNTnV|l OF ^v^Si:>iB BsqmER'^HommM BT4rEH'B-*5-0NNS' ^ 5 DAVGHTEK5' | WHICH LKWHEHCE PECESS-ED'THK 15 / OF OESI^MBEB^A; DNi'l6l5 lioV THAT BY' CHAMC'OR-CHOIC^ 0.r*THlS*HAST'SICHT ' KNDW'LIFE 'TO'DEATH- RESIGNS AS'DAY* TO-NIGHT 4?-* .- ;^ REV1¥E^'THE'DAYE ^ - -^^ • ^O'CHRlST-^HALL'Vi? 1 TJ^OyCH Tl/RNED -TO-DV^X THE WASHINGTONS ENGLISH HOME. 1 7 This was the father of the emigrant Sir John, and those three stars, those two stripes, that were carried -over the ocean to the new home in Vir- ginia, must have had some connection I think, with a certain flag that floats very proudly — as it has reason to do — on thousands of ships that sail that very ocean — on thousands of flagstaffs through- out the length and breadth of the American con- tinent. There are several other Washington tombs at Brington all with their stars and stripes in some form or other. But I think you will agree with me that Lawrence, the last English ances- tor of the maker of a mighty nation, is by far the most interesting member of the family to us nowa- days. I wonder what he would have thought as he sat in the " house-place " of his newly built home at Little Brington, had any one prophesied to him that his son John's descendant was destined to rule the greatest republic of the modern world. The old Washington house — till recently a farm- house, and now a well-to-do labourer's cottage — with flowers peeping out of the stone-mullioned windows, and sparrows building and chattering in l8 THE WASHINGTONS' ENGLISH HOME. the thatched eaves, and children filling their pitch- ers at the village pump under the great yew tree across the road, looks curiously settled and unad- venturous, and unaware of the great destinies of its children. And now that we have waded through this dull bit of history, let us see what sort of a land the Washingtons lived in. Northamptonshire is a country of big parks, big woods, big fields, big fences, big trees. The great, long-fleeced sheep, that fatten by hundreds in the rank grass pastures, look like mammoths after the neat, black-faced " south-downs " of Hampshire and Sussex. The huge white-faced Hereford cat- tle stare over the hedges like " Bulls of Bashan," or walk in a long line after us across a field, while our fox-terrier who they are following, takes refuge under our feet much to our discomfort. There are few rivers : but wide brooks run through the bottom-lands, cutting deep channels through the heavy clay. The land swells up every mile or so into bleak, rolling ridges like vast green waves tliat foam here and there into a crest of woodland; IN SIR JOHN WASHINGTON'S DAY. t THE WASHINGTONS' ENGLISH HOME. 2 1 and it sinks again into damp valleys, where wreaths of white mist hang even on summer days. So that one is for ever going up or down-hill, though there is not a hill to be called a hill in the whole county. Sandstone villages, with some of the finest churches in England are built along the crest of the ridges in one long straggling street : and the high pitch of the thatched roofs with their tall chimneys at each end, and the soft olive-green and yellow brown of the stone they are built of, give them a most picturesque appearance. But though the woods are carpeted in spring with primroses — and the pastures are alive with sweet yellow cowslips, and scores of nightingales sing in the spinneys, yet the country is sad to my mind. It is all grave and solemn. It never laughs and smiles in the sun- shine, like the southern and western counties — like some parts even of our beautiful Warwick- shire. The people too have less of the kindliness and courtesy of manner that one finds in the South : but often carry their "love of independence" to the verge of rudeness. Yet, after all, it is a fine and stately land ; and oh ! what a hunting county. 22 THE WASHINGTONS ENGLISH HOME. What gallops with the famous Pytchley Pack across those wide grass fields — what splendid riding over those deep brooks, and great " Bul- finches " — as the hawthorn hedges are called — a wall of thorns six feet through and fifteen feet high — that only the finest, heaviest horses can face. Then what splendid homes there are — great parks whose owners have been settled there for hundreds of years, each with its separate bit of history that has helped in the making of England. And chief among them all is Althorp. Come with me and let me tell you of my first walk from Brington to Althorp Park, where John Washington was so often a welcome guest ; and let me show you the very same trees that he may have climbed birds'-nesting with young William Spencer, his contemporary and playfellow; and let us walk through the same glades where Philip Curtis, another of the Althorp guests, may have wandered with fair Mistress Amy Washington, John's sister, whom he married in 1620, a year or two after the marriage of his sister Mary to John Washington. Outside the rectory garden gates the sun was THE WASHINGTONS' ENGLISH HOME. 23 casting long shadows across the '' Gravel Walk," a noble avenue of elms, sadly shattered by the Oc- tober hurricane of the year before : but still grand enough to satisfy any one who had not known their former glory. Far away to the left across the Val- ley, Holmby^ House of famous memory, gleamed golden-white on a ridge on intense purple. Every- thing was bathed in tender brilliant sunshine, and the air was fresh, clear, and invigorating, as we neared the high park wall of olive-green sandstone. A little postern gate let us into the park, and turn- ing to the left along the avenue of gigantic elms which runs the whole way round it inside the wall, we soon reached the heronry, cut off from the park by tall iron deerfencing. The scene was strangely familiar to me. — Surely I must have seen it all before. — But no ! that was impossible as I had never set foot in Northampton- shire in my life until now. I stood staring and puzzled. Then it all rushed across me. The giant stems of the oaks and Spanish chestnut, * Now spelt Holdenby. It was here that King Charles the First was kept in a kind of honourable confinement in 1647, by the Parliamentary Commissioners. 24 THE WASHINGTONS' ENGLISH HOME. glistening pale against a dark background of fir and spruce, were for all the world like the end of a clearing in Canada, or Western New York. I had seen the same thing hundreds of' times : but here there were no huge stumps left in the clear- ing — no lumberer's log hut — but smooth green turf and trim gravel walks, and long settled peace and plenty all about. But now the silence was broken by strange sounds overhead — clanking and rattling as of chains smitten together, with wild hoarse cries. The trees above us were bare and broken. Some blight seemed to have fallen on them, and stripped the bark, and torn the small branches. I looked again, and in the blasted trees I saw huge birds moving to and fro, and piling broken twigs into rough untidy heaps. We were in the midst of the heronry ; and the herons were building their nests ; while the noise of clanking chains was made by their long bills clappering together with a strange metallic sound, as they flapped backwards and forwards quarrelling over the possession of some favorite fork in the trees that they are gradually THE WASHINGTONS' ENGLISH HOME. 27 destroying. John Washington must have often seen the ancestors of those great gray birds ; for in the Althorp Steward's Books that I have al- ready quoted mention is constantly made of the " hearnes." One day "Creaton'' gets three shillings for climbing nine herons' nests. A day after "four- teen hearnes " are sent to Wormleighton ; young ones I suppose that Creaton took out of the nests. In one week some years later, twenty-five herons' nests are climbed. " Hearnes " are sent as pres- ents to Lady Washington and the neighbors, and so forth. But I shall have more to tell you about the herons before I let you go, so let us leave them screaming and quarrelling and push on into the park. At length another avenue, with one fallen giant elm lying across it — measuring eighty feet from where it spjit oif some thirty feet from the ground — led us down towards the house. And then a gate in the deer-fence let us into the garden and arboretum, with rows of ancient trees marking its confines. The emerald turf was studded with 28 THE WASHINGTONS' ENGLISH HOME. thousands of gay little winter aconites lifting their yellow heads to the sun out of their petticoats of close green leaves, and countless snowdrops ring- ing their dainty white bells, looking like downy patches of new-fallen snow on the grass. Among the beautiful groups of rare and curious trees we wandered on till we came to the "Oval '^ — an oval pond, some three hundred yards along — covered with tiny dabchicks, and busy coots and moor hens who perpetually chased each other through the water on to the island in the middle, and disap- peared among the scarlet fringe of dogwood, to emerge on the other side ready for a fresh chase and frolic. Stately swans basked in the sunshine on the water, or stretched their long necks and shook their white wings on shore. Up from the water sloped banks of smooth-shaven turf; and some fifty feet back from the pond rose an encir- cling line of huge single trees, any one of which was a study in itself, and in whose tall tops jackdaws kept up an incessant chatter over their housebuild- ing and love-making. Althorp House lay away to our right — the great ALTHORr PARK. — THE HERNERV. THE WASHINGTONS' ENGLISH HOME. 3 1 white house with its priceless books — the finest private library in Europe it is said — and its price- less pictures — portraits by every famous painter for four hundred years — besides Italian and Flemish paintings, some of which, thanks to their owner's generosity, may be seen every winter in the Loan Exhibitions at South Kensington or Burling- ton House. But we had no time to explore the treasures of Althorp House on that early spring afternoon ; so we turned up past the dairy — filled throughout with pots and pans of Dresden china — and reached the limits of the garden. The gate in the deer-fence was locked : but we made for another which brought us out close to the head keeper's house. It is a beautiful old sand- stone building of the sixteenth century ; and as we knocked at the massive oak door, studded with nails and clamped with iron, an inscription on the stone lintel, rudely carved with a knife, caught my eye : Thomas Padget Keeper 1672. 32 THE WASHINGTONS ENGLISH HOME. A chorus of dogs answered our knock ; and as the door opened, a splendid Skye terrier with knowing look and one ear cocked up and the other down, and a couple of Teckels — long-backed, bandy- legged, satin-coated, black-and-tan German turn- spits, with delicate heads like miniature blood- hounds, and sad pathetic eyes - — poured out upon us an avalanche of heads, tails, legs and barks. But their bark is worse than their bite ; and they are soon begging to share the delicious tea and bread and butter with which we are regaled. The head keeper Mr. C , is past ninety ; and his father, who was head keeper before him, died when he was past ninety ; and his son who will be liead keeper when the dear old man is gone to his rest, has every right to live to the same ripe old age ; for his mother also came of a long-lived family. Her brother, who died quite recently, served in the American War of Independence. But what a picture the old man is, in his well- made shooting coat with innumerable pockets, and his tight snuif-colored breeches, and top boots — and what a perfect gentleman he is, with courtly, THE WASHINGTONS ENGLISH HOME. 35 highbred manners that this schoolboard-taught generation may strive and struggle after, but never attain, in spite of all their boasted civilization. He has lived among the great of the world ; but he knows his place, and keeps it too. And though his grandchildren are barristers and clergymen he is ** My Lord's head keeper," and proud he is of his position. The hounds came past on Saturday, his grand- daughter said ; and though he had been ailing for a day or two, the old man ordered his horse, and escorted the Empress of Austria across the Park. "Yes," he said, "I saw them all:-— There was Lord , he came and spoke to me, and I asked how his son was — nice boy he was — used to be often at Althorp. He said he was in Ireland. And Squire B come and spoke to me. Yes ! they all know me. Last time the Prfnce of Wales was here, he came up to see me — but I was out." And the fine cheery old face lights up at the remembrance of all these little attentions. I told him I had never seen a heronry before, and he beamed again. 36 THE WASHINGTONS' ENGLISH HOME. " Ah ! now,*' he said, " I am pleased theyVe gone back there ! At one time I was afraid as they^d all go away. They took to building in a little spinney close down here in Holdenby fields : but I wasn't going to stand that — so I took a man LITTLE BRINGTON, ENG.—AT THE VILLAGE PUMP THE WASHINGTONS' ENGLISH HOME. 39 or two, and pulled every one of their nests right down ; and then they went back to the old place. I 7iuas glad, for they've built there for between two hundred and three hundred years." He told us that the herons go out at night in END OF A LANE IN BRINGTON. long lines, two and two, and rob the fish ponds and the shallows for miles round — standing motionless under the hedges waiting for the favorable hour to begin, like a regiment of soldiers : and before morning they came home with their pouches crammed with fish and eels. One he said brought home an eel hook and well besides the eel, and 40 THE WASHINGTONS' ENGLISH HOME. got himself hooked up in the trees by it, and would have starved to death had not the keepers climbed up and released him. But now the sun is getting low, and we turn homewards across the Park, past the herds of deer under the great trees feeding up to the sunset ; and overhead stream up countless thousands of rooks and their attendant jackdaws. Away to the west, from out of the eye of the setting sun, they come, seemingly an interminable line ever growing and increasing ; and then when they settle down in the trees on the knolls above the house, what a sea of sound their voices make, till night falls and quiets them. Up the avenue the church tower over the Wash- ington graves glows against the bright evening sky: and as we near home children's voices play- ing round the old Market Cross by the Rectory gates, rise shrill and clear, and we are once more in the work-a-day world. CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. NCE upon a time when I was a lit- tle girl I remember sitting beside my father up- on the box of a travel- ling carriage, on our way home from a hap- py visit by the banks of the beautiful Thames. The horses trotted stead- ily onwards. The postillion in his black velvet cap and light-blue jacket, bobbed up and down to the cadence of 41 42 CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. their measured steps; mile after mile of black fir-trees rising out of beds of purple heather, slipped behind us, and there between our feet, se- cured by a strong chain, lay a long-backed, short- legged, wiry-haired yellow puppy. That was Dandy. Presently the fir-trees and sandy heaths melted into ploughed fields and hedgerows. We came to the crest of a long hill, and below us, between wide- stretching, heather-clad moors known as Finchamp- stead Ridges and Hartfordbridge Flats, lay a sunny green vale. Down into the vale we trotted, through copses full of nightingales ; over the little Blackwater River, where otters barked in the crumbling banks, and kingfishers darted out — a flash of sapphire and emerald — from some sheltering alder ; past the smooth-shaven village green where men and boys were playing cricket after their days* work ; past thatched cottages, each with its garden bright with flowers ; past bits of common where the cottagers fed their geese, and their donkeys browsed on the prickly golden-flowered gorse; up the church lane from whose banks in spring we children filled our CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. 43 hands with sweet-scented white violets that hid their modest heads among the grass beneath the tall elm- trees. Then we came to a farmhouse with its barns and rick yards ; and beyond it we saw a square red brick church tower, and beyond the church tower lay a low old bay-windowed red brick house covered with roses and creepers and guarded by three huge Scotch fir-trees rising from the green lawn — and we were at home : for this was Eversley Rectory, and here Dandy was to live. But before I introduce you to Dandy himself, I must tell you a little about his family history ; for he was no common cur, picked up out of the streets, and he must be treated with proper respect, as befits a dog of ancient pedigree. He was one of that renowned breed of terriers that Sir Walter Scott made famous in " Guy Mannering," of " auld Pepper and auld Mustard, and young Pep- per and young Mustard, and little Pepper and little Mustard," who, as their gallant old owner said, "fear naething that ever cam' wi' a hairy skin on't." The first Dandie Dinmont terriers belongs to Mr. James Davidson, of Hindlee, on the edge of the Teviotdale 44 CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. Mountains, and their master was the original of the delicious character of the brave old border farmer, Dandie Dinmont of Charlie's-hope. From these fearless ancestors sprang a long line of fearless de- scendants. They are something like a skye terrier, but heavier and stronger, with shorter hair ; and in color are either " pepper,'^ a bluish-gray, or " mus- tard," or reddish-brown. They are noted for courage, sagacity, strength and faithfulness ; and among all that famous family never was there a wiser, a better, or a finer dog than our dear friend Dandy ; for a friend he soon became. We loved him as one of the family, and he rejoiced in our joys and grieved and sympathized in our sorrows. In a few months after his arrival Dandy had grown to his full size. He was a long, low dog, with very short, strong, crooked legs, big paws that turned out like a turnspits', a broad head with plenty of room for his brain, powerful jaws and teeth, soft drooping ears, and tender, steadfast brown eyes which expressed every thought in his heart as plainly as if he had had the gift of speech, the only human attribute that was denied him. He was immensely strong ; and though CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. 45 perfectly sweet-tempered to every human being who did no evil, he soon developed a taste for fighting other dogs which, I am ashamed to say, was a great source of delight to us naughty children. For if in our walks we met a strange dog that looked as if it would like to make a meal upon us, Dandy was bris- tling all over in a minute. Then the big dog — for Dandy would never notice dogs smaller than him- self — would take a turn round the low yellow dog, growling with contempt. Then came a sudden snarl — a flash of white teeth, and the big bully was lying in the dust, while Dandy, unhurt, stood calmly survey- ing his prostrate foe who had been seized by the leg and rolled over just when he expected to make an easy end of our precious defender. One day I remember a little carter-boy coming down to the Rectory in some excitement. " Oh, please 'um, you'd better go up on Brick Hill, that there dog of yourn's been a fightin', and 'eve got two dogs down and he standin' on 'em." And sure enough there stood Dandy, bristling and triumphant, with his fore feet planted on a huge sheep dog and a greyhound belonging to a neighbor- 46 CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. ing farmer, who lay not daring to move head or tail. How he managed it we never could tell, for each of his adversaries was twice as big as he was : but any dog having once felt Dandy's teeth was sure to sub- mit to his rule for the rest of his life. No children are perfect; and so Dandy's early days could not be expected to pass without some youthful misdemeanors. The most serious of these, and one which he bitterly repented for many years to come, occurred on a Sunday. We were all away from home, so a strange clergyman was engaged to come over to Eversley for the day to do the duty, and a nice beefsteak had been prepared for his dinner between services. But when the cook went to the larder to get her beefsteak and dress it, it was no- where to be found. Then she bethought her of Dandy, who had come in a little while before with his nose and paws covered with earth, as if he had been burying some treasure. Search was made. Dandy was watched, and at length he was tracked to a hiding- place in the garden, and there were the melancholy, earthy, half-eaten remains of the poor clergyman's dinner. Dandy was beaten for about the first and CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. 47 last time in his life : but he was also scolded, and that hurt him far more than any beating. For years after one had only to say, *' Dandy, who stole the CHARLES KINGSLEY. beefsteaks ? " and his tail would go between his legs, his brown eyes fill with tears, and he would slink away with a look of the most bitter remorse and abject misery. 48 CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. When Dandy had been with us for a year or two, we were obliged, on account of my mother's health, to leave Eversley for a couple of years, and go to the milder climate of Devonshire. Our first point was Torquay ; and here we children first learnt the delight of life on the seashore. Our whole time was spent in searching the rocks of Livermead for rare sea- beasts, and the sands of Paignton for shells and sea weeds, which we brought home and kept alive in large glass vivariums. Dandy was our constant com- panion ; and while we with our father were hunting for the lovely living flowers of the rock pools, Dandy was enjoying himself quite as much hunting for rab- bits along the cliffs and sand hills. One day we had been on Paignton Sands, and came home laden with a precious prize — the great " red-legged cockle," that strange mollusk that at certain times appears in vast quantities in Torquay, and is not found anywhere else till you get down at the coasts of the Mediterra- nean. Dandy, however, did not come home with us ; but we took little thought of his absence, feeling sure he was busily engaged in some rabbit-hole, and would follow us when he had come to the end of his task. CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. 49 But evening came, and no Dandy. I can see the table in the window with lamp upon it, and the great yellow cockle shells hopping and clattering about in the glass pans of salt water, each on their red coral EVERSLEY RECTORY. leg like a scarlet capsicum. But even cockles, rare and strange as they were, could not console us, and we were very miserable. Presently, late in the evening, came a knock at the 50 CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. door, and when it was opened there stood a coast- guard man in his sailor dress, and in his arms, limp and still, lay Dandy. Oh the misery of that sight ! how we cried ! He seemed if not dead, at least dying ; unable to move, yet still smiling with his loving, faithful eyes at his beloved master. He had fallen over a cliff while hunting his rabbits or trying to find us, and the good coastguard, on his rounds to keep the coast safe from smugglers, had found him lying apparently dead, and knowing us and our love for the dog, had carried him all the way to Livermead in his arms. But Dandy was not to die yet. He was nursed and tended like a sick child. After some while he began to mend ; and by the time we left Torquay and drove across Dartmore to Bideford, on the north coast of Devon, Dandy was as well as ever, and dug out scores of rabbits on Northam Burrows, among the rest-harrow and lady-fingers, while the Atlantic waves roared upon the pebble-ridge hard by ; and made himself the terror of all evil doers, whether dogs or men, at Bideford ; and was pursued wher- ever he went by an excited but respectful crowd of CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. 5 1 little boys, who screamed to each other in shrill, west-county voices, to " come and look at the young lion/' Time went by. We were once more in our dear home at Eversley, and Dandy rejoiced like us to settle down after his travels. It was a happy life that we led. Above the Rectory, between the green fields and the brown moors, lies the Mount, a little bit of primeval forest untouched by the hand of man since the Norman Conquest, and here most of our young days were spent. There was a huge hollow oak, into whose branches we climbed by a few rough steps ; and perched aloft in the green shade we learnt our lessons and played unspeakable games, in which the whole Mount became peopled with imaginary friends and enemies, and we had won- derful adventures and escapes, slew monsters, and visited the fairies, within the limit of one acre of wood. Here we gathered the blue wild hyacinth, or the starry wood anemone ; we crept softly under the holly trees and watched the quivering brown throat of the nightingale, as, with head aloft, he poured forth a torrent of tremulous song ; we listened to the 52 CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. little wood-wren in the tree-top, and in the forks of the gorse-stems we found the tiny dormice clewed up in their nests. And this was Dandy's kingdom. Every rabbit-burrow he knew by heart ; and deep was his joy when, in the holidays, our man George would come with gun and spade and ferrets for a day's rabbiting with my brothers. In an incredibly short time he would be nearly buried in a rabbit hole, digging the sand away with his strong fore- paws, and sending it flying behind him with his hind feet. But though Dandy loved us and loved hunting, he loved his master best of all. Never was he so happy as when he was trotting after my father in his long walks over the parish to see the sick and poor. Over the wide desolate moors he followed his footsteps, along the narrow tracks in the heather. He knew every cottage, and would lie motionless for any length of time by some sick woman's bedside, while his master read and prayed with her. Or on the days my father had a " Cottage Lecture," a little service for some old folks who were too feeble to get to church. Dandy was sure to be there, never moving, CHARLES KINSLGEY AND HIS DOGS. 53 or disturbing even the cat by the turf fire while the service went on. He sometimes came to church himself, but there he behaved with his wonted dis- cretion. Once when my father was preaching at Northam, near Bideford, we found on arriving at the church door that Dandy had followed us, though he gener- ally knew he was not to come out on Sunday morn- ing. It was too far to send him home, so we told him to come in and be quiet. But he knew it was a strange church, and seemed uneasy lest all should not go right with his master in such an unknown place. So when my father went up into the pulpit for the sermon, Dandy followed him, and calmly lying down on the top of the high old-fashioned pulpit steps, looked round on the astonished congre- gation as much as to say, " If you attempt to annoy or hurt my master, I am here to defend him," and there he watched till the sermon was over. Years came and went, and we children grew up, and Dandy grew old — very old for a terrier of his breed. At last, when he was thirteen years old, he could hardly do more than crawl off his mat in the 54 CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. front hall to a sunny corner in the garden, though still when we said to him, ^' Ring your bell. Dandy,'' he would flap his strong tail against the floor, and smile in our faces. And then came the sad day when in his ripe old age he peacefully died, and went away to the happy hunting-grounds to which all good dogs go. There was not a dry eye in our home that day, and we all mourned for a true friend. Faithful and loving was Dandy, self-denying and self-controlled to a degree that might shame most human beings. And when he was buried on the lawn under the great fir-trees where he had spent so many happy days, his master engraved upon the little stone which covers his grave : " FiDELI FiDELES." The faithful to the faithful. Before Dandy died another dog came to our home — an enormous black retriever whose name was Sweep. His mother, who belonged to a neighbor of ours, was celebrated for her light mouth. I have seen her master roll a new-laid ^gg down a grassy slope, when she rushed after it, caught it while it was CHARLES KTNGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. 55 yet rolling, and brought it uncracked to his feet. This lightness of mouth our Sweep inherited ; and it was pretty to see him in the stable-yard catch a wee snow-white kitten by the nape of its neck, and carry it unhurt wherever she told him. The kitten delighted in the feat, and would come rubbing and purring against the great black dog to make him do it again. By and by as the kitten grew into a cat, Sweep found she was too heavy to take up by her neck without pinch- ing her too hard with his teeth ; so he used to take her whole head into his capacious mouth, and so carry her about, much to the horror of any new- comer, who thought of course he was going to bite her head right off ! Sweep in his way was as faithful as Dandy ; but it was a curious way, and sometimes rather alarming. He had been taught in the stable to guard anything left in his charge against all comers, if one told him to "mind it." One day a foolish stable boy told him to " mind " my youngest brother's hat, which he had dropped on the ground. The child wanting his hat, stooped to pick it up ; whereupon Sweep flew at him and bit him, refusing to give up the hat until the 56 CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. Stable boy in terror at what he had been the cause of, came to the rescue. Happily the bite proved a slight matter. But every one was careful after that how they told Sweep to mind their property. He was a strange dog, and there were only three people in the world who might lay a finger on him ; DANDY ALWAYS PREFERRED A BIG FOE. my brother and I, and our man George. If we had beaten him to death I believe he would have sub- mitted with perfect good temper. But woe betide any other rash mortal who raised so much as a straw to chastise him. Our good neighbor and doctor once was kind enough to come and see Sweep, who in hunting had hurt his eye with a thorn. The dog CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. 57 was suffering greatly, and 1 brought him into the kitchen, and sitting down close to the door got his head firmly between my knees, and coaxed and com- forted him till the doctor appeared. He opened the door beside me, advanced to his patient with sooth- ing words, and then leaning forward, was about to examine the injured eye. But with a roar like thunder, up sprang Sweep, tearing himself from my grasp ; the doctor flew through the door as if he had been shot out of a gun ; and Sweep's eye had to get well by itself. Sweep hated tramps, and very few dared visit our house if they knew he was at home. One day in his objection to this most objectionable race of people, he nearly devoured one of my friends. She was a very pretty young lady, who had the gift of transform- ing herself by a few touches, a twist of her hair, a red cloak, and an old bonnet, into one of the most appallingly hideous old women I ever had the misfor- tune to see. One evening she dressed up in this fashion, and knocking at the kitchen door, suddenly appeared before the astonished servants. Sweep was more than astonished — he was furious — and with jS CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. a terrific growl rushed at the supposed tramp and would certainly have torn her down had she not had the wit to jump upon the kitchen table, which gave George time to recognize her and drag the dog off. Nevertheless in spite of these shows of temper we were all devoted to Sweep. He was a grand fellow and a splendid watch dog. Indeed we thought that it was because he was such a terror to tramps and evil doers that he came to a melancholy end. For one day he seemed ill and out of sorts, and before evening was dead of poison, which had evidently been laid down for him somewhere near the house. But I cannot finish Sweep's history without speak- ing of his dear friend " Victor,'' our little royal dog, for he and Sweep were inseparable companions. Once when my father was dining at Windsor Cas- tle, he admired the Queen's favorite Dachshund, who never leaves her side ; and the Queen graciously promised him a puppy as soon as any were ready. Months went and we heard nothing of the gift. But the Queen never forgets, and one day my father received a note from one of the keepers at Windsor: "Dear Sir: — A fine deakle pup awaits your commands." CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. 59 We laughed over the Englishman's attempt at German spelling, but sent the commands; and a hamper arrived with a little squeaking puppy inside SWEEP AND HIS CAT TRICK. it. He looked at first like an animated worm with four legs, he was so long and thin and low. But he found his way into our hearts in spite of his queer looks, and became the spoilt child of the house. These Dachshunds, or Teckels, or German Turn- 60 CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. spits, are used as their first name denotes, for hunting badgers in Germany. They are also use- ful with wild boars, as they are so low that when the boar makes a rush at them they can generally slip under his tusks and seize him by the leg. The Prince of Wales's famous dog "Woodman" has a great scar all along his side from the tusk of a wild boar in one of these encounters. The Dachshunds are of three colors : black and tan, liver colored, and pale chest- nut. The last are the most valuable, and also, alas ! the most delicate, as we found to our cost ; for our little dog that we named "Victor," after his royal donor, was a beautiful warm chestnut color. His long body was set upon the crookedest of legs — elbows turning out and wrists turning in ; his height when he was full grown was about five inches at the shoulders ; and he was a yard long from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail. But his grotesque appearance was more than made up for by the beauty of his head. It was like that of a miniature blood- hound, with fine nose, drooping ears, large pathetic eyes, and his coat was as smooth as satin. As I said, he soon became our spoilt child, and CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. 6 1 ruled the house. He refused to sleep anywhere save wrapped in a blanket on a certain low wicker chair between my sister's and my beds. If we attempted to put him elsewhere not a creature in the house could sleep for Master Victor's howls. So at last we succumbed, and our nights were tolerably tranquil till about four o'clock in the morning, when I was always roused by a scramble and a scrimmage. This was Victor, who arrived headlong upon my chest, scratched the bedclothes aside, wormed his soft little body down my bed till he reached my feet, and lay there happily till morning, giving a little growl and sometimes a gentle nip with his small teeth if I moved. He was a dog of very aristocratic tastes. No power on earth could make him go down by the back- stairs ; and if the maids ever chanced to persuade him to come with them to the kitchen, he would leave them to go down their own way, and running round by the front staircase, meet them at the kitchen door. Dachshunds were much less common twelve years ago than they are now. And when my father's duties took us to Chester for three months every summer, we were almost mobbed by the boys of that dear old 62 CHARLES KTNGSLEV AND HIS DOGS. city when we look Victor out walking. His long back, his crooked legs, and his bright, intelligent head were sources of never-failing wonder and delight to the young rogues, who pursued us with jeers and shouts, of which Victor never took notice. But it was at Eversley that the little dog was the happiest. Sometimes he went out on a private rabbit hunt with his friend Sweep; and we used to see the little wriggling yellow body panting after his big black companion, and imagining he was going to catch a rabbit that outstripped him in a moment. But when the dinner-bell — or still more on Sunday, when the church bells rang — then, indeed, we had a ludicrous exhibition from the two dogs. Sweep could not endure the sound of bells, and the moment they began to ring down went his tail, up went his head, and round and round the house he flew howling in the most frightful way. Victor had not the least natural objection to bells — at Chester he bore the whole cathedral chime with perfect composure — but he felt it right to show his sympathy for Sweep when he was with him, upon the principle that imita- tion is the sincerest flattery. So as soon as the bells CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. 63 began, out of the house shot Victor ; over the lawn, along the garden paths and through the yard he followed Sweep in his agonized race, turning where he turned, stopping where he stopped, and adding shrill yelps and howls to his ''^^ friend's lamentations. SWEEP COULD NOT ENDURE THE SOUND OF BELLS. Poor little Victor; his life was a short one. When we had had him for nearly two years he fell terribly ill. And in spite of every care — in spite of his 64 CHARLES KINGSLEY AND HIS DOGS. beloved master sitting up with him for three whole nights watching and tending the suffering little crea- ture — he died at last, and was buried beside Dandy and his friend Sweep under the fir-trees. After that my father said he would never have another pet dog ; they cost one too much sorrow. So Victor was the last of the faithful friends who were so faithfully loved by their master. THE QUEEN'S LITTLE SKYE. THE winter of 1587 was a gloomy one for the beautiful Mary Stuart, the captive Queen of Scots. It is not strange after her nine- teen years of imprisonment in English castles, manor houses, and even common inns, that the buoyant spirit and elastic temperament, which supported her in the darkest hours, had almost worn out. During the autumn of 1586, she had been hur- ried from Tutbury to Chartley, to Tixall, then back to Tutbury, and finally to Fotheringay Castle. As she rode with her few faithful ladies and attendants under its frowning portcullis, she whispered, " Now I am lost ! " And her words were prophetic ; for Fotheringay Castle was the last prison-house of Mary of Scotland. 65 66 THE queen's little skye. Through the whole month of January she was sick with a rheumatic affection of the limbs, which prevented her walking from her bed to her chair. All this sad time she and her " Maries," four ladies of her own name, and educated with her in France, were much diverted by a little dog called Bebe, that had been given to the Queen by one of the guards the summer before. Bebe would lie at her feet, cuddle himself into her arms as she sat at her table, and would not eat unless they brought his food into her room where she could watch him while he made his dainty meal. He was a very gentle, tiny Skye terrier; and it made the ladies laugh to bring a gleam of anger into the little creature's appealing blue eyes by pretending to pull the Queen's dress a little rudely ; or by disturbing some article of her toilet which she had commanded him to guard. Also, after the manner of heart-sick captives in all ages, they diverted themselves by teaching him quaint odd tricks, like catching a ball, sitting on his hind legs, holding his forepaws like hands as if begging, and finding each of them, if the Queen called THE queen's little SKYE. 67 them by name, when they had hidden behind the tapestry which concealed the rough mouldy walls of the old fortress of the Plantagenets. On Sunday, February 5, 1587, an unusual feeling of apprehension seized the imprisoned household. The guards were doubled, no two persons were allowed to talk together, poor terrified Bebe wailed ceaselessly, and the sentinels were startled by a brilliant meteor like a flame opposite the Queen's window, which returned thrice. In the evening Earl Shrewsbury and Earl Kent arrived from the court of Queen Elizabeth, and among their ser- vants, a sinister-faced man, dressed in black, who was known only too well and whose name was whis- pered with horror. Well might m.en shudder as they saw him ; for he had been seen on every one of the blood-stained scaffolds of the Tudors. Two days passed in quiet ; but late on the after- noon of Tuesday, February 7, the earls demanded audience with the Queen. She was ill in bed ; but she said if the matter was important she would rise and see them at once. They answered, " Their matter would brook no delay." When the ladies 68 THE QUEEN^S LITTLE SKYE. took up the Queen's mantle to wrap it around her, they found Bebe hidden in its great hood of fur. The Earl of Shrewsbury, without preface or hes- itation, told Mary it was the will of Queen Eliza- beth that she should die at eight of the clock the next morning. All present exclaimed at the brief space between the sentence and the execution ; all but Mary, who, as Shrewsbury himself tells us, only smiled a little, not even her hands trembling, he noticing them because she was playing with a little dog in her lap. Shrewsbury had been her jailer for many a year and had told Elizabeth repeatedly, " that there was naught in earth or heaven the Scotch Queen feared." Paulet, who alone of all her keepers dis- liked her personally, likewise relates, how uncon- cernedly she played with her little terrier, while they read her death-warrant. I will not dwell upon the night of anguish which followed the departure of Elizabeth's messengers, nor upon the bitter farewells of the early morning. Neither will I rehearse again the pathetic story of the execution of the Queen. Shrewsbury and MARY OF SCOTLAND. THE queen's little SKYE. 71 Kent, Paulet and Melville, her devoted Protestant secretary, all tell us that, as they led her through the great banqueting hall of the castle to the upper end where, by the side of the gigantic fireplace, a platform had been built to support the headsman's block, a reprieve was confidently and momentarily expected. But no reprieve came, and the soul of Mary Stuart escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowler. For two hours after her death none of her ladies were allowed to go near the body ; but when Jane Kennedy was permitted to remove the clothes and mantle, she heard a little moan. Startled, she wiped away her blinding tears, and looking carefully, found again in the great hood, faithful Bebe ! In the confusion he had followed his mistress unperceived. Forced from the spot, he attacked Paulet so fiercely that the latter shrank away. The affectionate little creature never touched food or drink and died three days after the dreadful tragedy, keeping up until his last breath, " a kind of death lament," inexpressibly touching. It is said the place where little Bebe was buried 72 THE QUEEN'S LITTLE SKYE. was pointed out as late as the reign of Charles the First who was grandson of Mary, Queen of Scots ; and who inherited if not all her virtues, at least all her faults ; and if he missed her fascinations, failed not of her miseries. QUEEN ELIZABETH^S SCHOOLMASTER. QUEEN ELIZABETH'S schoolmaster's name ' was Roger Ascham — so much a good many of you know already. I suppose that Roger Ascham was the most famous schoolmaster that there ever was in England, except Arnold Rugby himself — because he had such a famous scholar. It was ten years before Elizabeth became queen that Roger Ascham first became her teacher. She was only fourteen years old then. Her father — "bluff King Hal," you know — had died the year before, and he had had her mother's head cut off when she herself was a mere baby, so that she was an orphan now, and she was in the hands of a very bad lot of women. I think that it was the most fortunate thing in the world that so good a school- master as Roger Ascham came to her at just this 73 74 QUEEN Elizabeth's schoolmaster. time. If, with her bad governess and all the rest of the bad people around her, she had had a bad schoolmaster too, I don't know what would have become of her. Roger Ascham came up to her from St. John's College, Cambridge. He had studied in the Uni- versity almost all his life, and knew so much Greek and wrote such beautiful Latin letters that evei:ybody in England, who could read at all, knew about him. He was only fifteen years old when he first came to Cambridge from his Yorkshire home, in 1530, to study in St. John's College. St. John's College had been opened just as Ascham was born and was already the most famous college in Cambridge — though now it is not nearly so im- portant as Trinity College. But it is very much larger now than it was when Roger Ascham came up to study there ; and it has a beautiful building on the farther side of the Cam, with a beautiful bridge, like the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, across the river from the old brick buildings around the three courts, which were there in Ascham 's time. I often used to walk through these old courts, when QUEEN Elizabeth's schoolmaster. 75 I lived in Cambridge. In one of them, up a little winding stair, lives an old professor. He has a good many rooms up there, and the rooms are all so full of books, piled on the shelves and the tables and the chairs and the floor, that one can hardly get about. There are Greek and Latin and Hebrew books, and French and Italian books, and books in every language, I guess, that were ever spoken by decent men ; and this professor can read them all. But I think he likes the old Eng- lish books best of all. He has everything that Roger Ascham ever wrote — the long Latin letters and everything — and once he published a beauti- ful edition of the Schoolmaster — that is Ascham's famous book — with many learned notes. He has written a big history of St. John's College too, with a great deal about Ascham in it. I never used to go by the little winding-stair in the gateway, that led up to this wise professor among his books, without thinking that it was something so that Roger Ascham used to live at St. John's College, and hoping that he had those very rooms. Per- haps he did. 76 QUEEN Elizabeth's schoolmaster. At first he didn't, certainly, for at first he was only a common student, and four students had to sleep in each chamber ; only the doctors had each a chamber to himself. At four o'clock in the morning, one of the scholars had to get up and ring the college bell, to wake such scholars as were willing to leave their beds for their books so early. At eight in the evening in winter, and nine in summer, the gates were locked, and all the students had to be inside the college before that time. They all had to speak Latin ; if they spoke English in the college they were fined. None of them could keep hawks or dogs, or play at cards or dice, except at Christmas, and then only in the hall. Ascham was a very diligent student and he be- gan to play the schoolmaster in his earliest college days. He adopted for his motto, ''' Qui docet disciV' — who teaches learns. One of the Cambridge wise men told him that he would gain more knowledge by explaining one of ^sop's fables to a boy, than by hearing one of Homer's poems explained by another ; and as soon as he had got well started QUEEN ELIZABETH S SCHOOLMASTER. 77 in Greek, he read lectures, while he was yet a boy, to other boys who wanted to learn. He was elected a Fellow of the college, and in a few years he had a great many pupils and all the people in the Uni- versity were talking about what a wonderful scholar he was and how well he knew how to teach others what he knew himself. He was not merely a book-worm, this young scholar ; he was famous in the University for all sorts of accomplishments. He learned to play on musical instruments, such as they had in those days — aunt Lu can tell you what the great-great-grandfather of her piano was ; — and he was one of the few who excelled in writing. The English people were then only just beginning to learn how to write ; it was quite a new thing. Roger Ascham wrote very beautifully, and after- wards taught Queen Elizabeth and her brother. King Edward the Sixth, to write. He not only wrote his pages neatly, but he would embellish the margins with beautiful drawings, which were much admired at Cambridge, and at Whitehall too. He was very skilful also with his bow and arrow. He was never very strong and he had to exercise a 78 QUEEN Elizabeth's schoolmaster. good deal in the open air, to keep from being sick with all his hard study. His favorite amusement was archery. He was as fond of archery as Izaak Walton was of angling ; and he wrote a book called Toxophilus — which means "Lover of the Bow." Roger Ascham lived nearly twenty years at St. John's College, and I think he was happier there among his books than he ever was at Whitehall, writing Latin letters for Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. While he was teaching Elizabeth the first time — she was only the Princess Elizabeth then, not Queen Elizabeth — he was always think-